Search found 143 matches

by Ran
Thu Jun 01, 2017 12:22 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: How do boards of directors function in multilingual settings
Replies: 26
Views: 7758

Re: How do boards of directors function in multilingual sett

I must also add that the above is specific to an international business setting in Hong Kong. A more local Hong Kong business would have drastically different patterns, as would a company that's based in mainland China but does business in Hong Kong..
by Ran
Thu Jun 01, 2017 12:14 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: How do boards of directors function in multilingual settings
Replies: 26
Views: 7758

Re: How do boards of directors function in multilingual sett

I worked for a few years in an international business setting in Hong Kong. This is how it works: * If two or more native speakers of Cantonese talk to one another, they speak Cantonese. * If two or more native speakers of Mandarin talk to one another, they speak Mandarin. [EDIT: an exception to the...
by Ran
Mon May 25, 2015 12:27 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Chinese thread
Replies: 108
Views: 23482

Re: Chinese thread

By "accentless" I mean a flat, bland, standardized accent that does not betray your geographical origins, kind of like "General American" in the U.S. or, from what I understand, the Standard German spoken in northern Germany. Should be like this: /Vn/ is [V~1~] in Beijingese. It is [Vn], [V~n] in "a...
by Ran
Thu May 21, 2015 10:04 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Chinese thread
Replies: 108
Views: 23482

Re: Chinese thread

It feels like I'm never gonna fully learn the pronunciation. :/ Like the other a friend of mine taught me that initial+o is pronunced initial+[uo]. I had no idea, and had not noticed it in any Chinese person's speech before. If you go by the IPA in the Pinyin page on Wikipedia, you'll end up with a...
by Ran
Thu May 21, 2015 6:00 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Chinese thread
Replies: 108
Views: 23482

Re: Chinese thread

It feels like I'm never gonna fully learn the pronunciation. :/ Like the other a friend of mine taught me that initial+o is pronunced initial+[uo]. I had no idea, and had not noticed it in any Chinese person's speech before. If you go by the IPA in the Pinyin page on Wikipedia, you'll end up with a...
by Ran
Tue May 05, 2015 7:32 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Chinese thread
Replies: 108
Views: 23482

Re: Chinese thread

I asked a friend of mine who has studied Chinese in Shanghai and Singapore how /s`ui/ was pronounced. He said something akin to [s`u@i]. I then said that our teacher says [kui] for /kui/, and he answered that that was correct. So what's the deal here? When is ui [ui] and when is it [u@i]? It should...
by Ran
Wed Apr 29, 2015 10:58 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Chinese thread
Replies: 108
Views: 23482

Re: Chinese thread

I asked a friend of mine who has studied Chinese in Shanghai and Singapore how /s`ui/ was pronounced. He said something akin to [s`u@i]. I then said that our teacher says [kui] for /kui/, and he answered that that was correct. So what's the deal here? When is ui [ui] and when is it [u@i]? It should...
by Ran
Wed Apr 29, 2015 10:57 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Chinese thread
Replies: 108
Views: 23482

Re: Chinese thread

A Mandarin pronunciation question... how are ri and er pronounced? For er , my textbooks say [əɹ], but this site makes it sound like [aɹ]. For ri , that site has something I have trouble transcribing... could be [ɹ] or [yɹ] or even [əɹ]. er - in my idiolect at least it is a perfect rhyme with -ar /...
by Ran
Sat May 04, 2013 8:23 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Re: Help me with semantic examples! (from Zomp's blog)
Replies: 218
Views: 39981

Re: Help me with semantic examples! (from Zomp's blog)

1 - the one child policy exists only in mainland china 2 - there is a one-generation lag between the one-child policy being put in place and first cousins becoming rare 3 - these terms (aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.) are freely applied in everyday usage (with or without modification) to second, third...
by Ran
Sat May 04, 2013 7:32 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Re: Help me with semantic examples! (from Zomp's blog)
Replies: 218
Views: 39981

Re: Help me with semantic examples! (from Zomp's blog)

Standard Mandarin Chinese - Kinship terms All in all, there are a lot more mandatory distinctions made than in English... Siblings: 哥哥 ge1ge0 [older brother] 弟弟 di4di0 [younger brother] 姐姐 jie3jie0 [older sister] 妹妹 mei4mei0 [younger sister] First cousins: 堂哥 tang2ge1 [older male cousin whose father...
by Ran
Sat May 04, 2013 6:21 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Re: Help me with semantic examples! (from Zomp's blog)
Replies: 218
Views: 39981

Re: Help me with semantic examples! (from Zomp's blog)

Yep... and to continue on the same vein [...] What is this wizardry? A citizen of the PRC listing characters in their traditional form first, and then in simplified in parenthesis ? Are my eyes deluding me? 1 - I am not a citizen of the PRC 2 - The citizens of the PRC vary in their usage of, and pr...
by Ran
Fri May 03, 2013 9:31 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Re: Help me with semantic examples! (from Zomp's blog)
Replies: 218
Views: 39981

Re: Help me with semantic examples! (from Zomp's blog)

Yep... and to continue on the same vein Heavy 重 zhong4 Light 輕[轻]qing1 Dark 深 shen1 Light 淺[浅]qian3 [as in colour] Deep 深 shen1 Shallow 淺[浅]qian3 Dark 暗 an4 Bright 亮 liang4 [as in environments; if used to describe colors, then "dull/bright"] Thick 厚 hou4 Thin 薄 bao4 for flat or sheet-like things, e....
by Ran
Tue Apr 17, 2012 2:46 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Compounding and the structure of the lexicon
Replies: 21
Views: 3512

Re: Compounding and the structure of the lexicon

chris_notts wrote: I'll keep Googling and post any good links here as I go.
Here's something I found that you might find useful:

http://books.google.com/books?id=lUIj3O ... navlinks_s

You can also use search terms like "Chinese word formation" and "Chinese morphology" if you haven't tried those.
by Ran
Mon Apr 02, 2012 4:21 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: New /a/ phoneme emerging in Canadian English?
Replies: 25
Views: 7032

Re: New /a/ phoneme emerging in Canadian English?

Well, alright then, is it generally the case that most foreign "a" words are pronounced with /ɑ/ (the FATHER vowel) in the U.S.? The answer to which appears to be, generally, yes.
by Ran
Fri Mar 30, 2012 2:48 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: New /a/ phoneme emerging in Canadian English?
Replies: 25
Views: 7032

Re: New /a/ phoneme emerging in Canadian English?

To tell you the truth, I think I've been down here too long and my speech has been contaminated, because for some of these words I think I have a three-way distinction. However, I still have /æ/ in plaza, lava, Slavic, and pasta, and maybe Gandhi. Dali and Saab are too foreign for /æ/, and perhaps ...
by Ran
Tue Mar 27, 2012 1:59 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: New /a/ phoneme emerging in Canadian English?
Replies: 25
Views: 7032

Re: New /a/ phoneme emerging in Canadian English?

Hakaku wrote: candy [kʰandi]
Gandhi [gandi]~[gɑndi]
blondie [blɑndi]
As a follow up question, do you raise /a/ before nasals? If you do, is Gandhi raised as much as candy?
by Ran
Tue Mar 27, 2012 1:23 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: New /a/ phoneme emerging in Canadian English?
Replies: 25
Views: 7032

Re: New /a/ phoneme emerging in Canadian English?

phoneme *twitch* may i see some minimal triplets please dally - Dali - dolly (*if* the foreign /a/ is a new phoneme) Are you saying that general Canadian English dialects have /O/ in father? Regarding New England, spats is right; there are three vowels, but that's nothing new. As far as I know they...
by Ran
Tue Mar 27, 2012 12:12 am
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: New /a/ phoneme emerging in Canadian English?
Replies: 25
Views: 7032

New /a/ phoneme emerging in Canadian English?

I found this: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=6686404&jid=LVC&volumeId=21&issueId=03&aid=6686396 The basic thesis is that, for recent borrowings with "foreign a", where other English dialects either go with the "father" vowel or the "trap" vowel (however they are real...
by Ran
Mon Aug 08, 2011 7:38 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: One Chinese Poem Read 68 Ways
Replies: 4
Views: 1661

One Chinese Poem Read 68 Ways

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjkyMTE3Nzk2.html (The corny background music in a loop is because this is a romantic poem) One poem read 68 ways, including examples from all the major groups, as well as all three Sino-Xenic systems and a bunch of historical reconstructions. Quality varies because thi...
by Ran
Tue Jun 28, 2011 7:33 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread
Replies: 3108
Views: 640440

Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

for those of you who rhyme "mirror" and "nearer," how do you pronounce the first vowel of:

irrespective
irresponsible

and

irrational
irrevocable
edit: irradiate
?
by Ran
Tue Jun 14, 2011 1:03 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Very detailed map of the North American dialects of English
Replies: 50
Views: 6886

Re: Very detailed map of the North American dialects of Engl

Canadian English as one. Pretty much fail. Well, it is pretty homogeneous compared to the US. Besides, it's not quite one; there are the atlantic provinces explicitly marked as separate, and you see those other lines crisscrossing it (there's a brown one surrounding the prairie provinces)? Isogloss...
by Ran
Wed Apr 13, 2011 12:09 pm
Forum: Languages & Linguistics
Topic: Cantonese
Replies: 12
Views: 2602

Re: Cantonese

40 may be too low. wikipedia lists a hundred (or more) and most are legitimate, run-of-the-mill, modern, colloquially-used words at a quick glance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_classifiers that being said, there's a lot of flexibility in terms of what classifier goes with each noun s...
by Ran
Sun Jan 23, 2011 2:41 am
Forum: Almea
Topic: Incatena
Replies: 173
Views: 55693

Re: Incatena

[I generally agree with pthug here... but in addition, and as an extension to what I've said earlier -- you may well program a superhuman CEO with "making a profit" and "pleasing stakeholders" in mind as the superhuman CEO's hard-coded desires, but once the superhuman CEO reaches and then surpasses...